Bleeding Minds
by martiansarepeopletoo
Summary: When you are lost in Purgatory, just keeping a grip on unreality is a near impossibility.


Just because purgatory feels are never ending, and I need to get them all out before October. Enjoy!

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The nightmares never stop coming for him.

They are different than the ones he experienced on Earth. Those, while horrifying, at least retained some vague sort of solidity and sense, whereas here he is trapped in an enveloping mass of consciousness and pain, confusion and paranoia. Nothing _works_ while he is trapped inside his head. He balloons to the size of a planet, and then folds in on himself over and over again until there is nothing but a million _hims_, swirling and pulling and stretching around him. And then suddenly he shatters into atoms and dust and endless space, flung to the deepest corners of existence and further. Dark creatures surround him, and he tries to scream but how can he when he does not have a mouth? Trees melt, patterns burst across the sky and then burn into his eyes, he feels his skin turn to scraps of fine paper and blow away on the harsh winds. Worst of all is when he loses all of his senses completely, and he is composed of nothing but panic and terror, able only to think and never feel, never hear, never see…

Yes, the nightmares are exquisitely terrifying.

His waking hours aren't much better.

He spends the days in a state of perpetual exhaustion, destroying and hiding, and following Castiel. Time has little meaning in Purgatory, and he can run a thousand miles in a second, but take years to cross a small valley. Sometimes he finds himself sitting next to Castiel with no idea how he got there, and Castiel will explain, and then he will cling to him because he's the only thing that makes any sense in this twisted place. Often, he forgets himself, and Purgatory sucks him into a world of green lawns and baseball games and visits to the grocery store, until Castiel reminds him that none of it is real, none of it, and everything disappears. He finds himself back in that constant unreality, dark trees and low howls in the night, the scratching of claws and the mewling of things he'd rather not dwell upon. But they always manage to end up here, in this eerie but quiet cave, lit by a fire that neither of them are sure is entirely real. Despite his madness, there is still something angelic in Castiel, because he has a much better grip on what is true and what is fabrication in this place, which Dean finds darkly amusing because who'd have thought the insane angel would be the one guiding the battle hardened hunter through realms of monsters?

When he kills, the same thing always happens. The eyes of the creature, or what is left of them, glow a dull red before turning to ash, and he will feel the life they once knew drain from them as they screech

_ help me righteous man_

_ take me with you_

and no matter how many of them he destroys, their rasping voices stay, rattling through his brain until he could go mad with it, but there's already one lunatic here and that's enough for Purgatory to take care of for now.

This lunatic holds Dean through his nightmares and keeps him anchored to the life he used to know. He kisses him and takes him and makes him whole again, preventing the oh-so-distant past from disappearing entirely. Dean loses himself in Castiel because he needs the touch and the sensation and the feelings of solidity, beauty, tying him to the truth and the reality he has left behind. Castiel loses himself in Dean because Dean needs it, and sometimes Castiel can close his eyes and pretend he feels what _he_ needs radiating back towards him.

He never does. There's too much anger and fear and forgetfulness trapped inside his Dean now.

They talk when they can, and Dean lies down and closes his eyes as Castiel weaves words through the air of bees and monkeys and honey. He knows, even in his confused mind, that Dean doesn't really listen, but things make much more sense when he speaks without thinking, so that's what he does. When Dean falls into fitful sleep, he holds him and keeps him warm, and that's when the words he needs to say come out.

Dean never remembers any of them, and for the first time Castiel feels the wetness of tears on his face.

Dean doesn't get hungry. Castiel doesn't know whether to worry about this or not. Eventually, he decides there's no point in dwelling on what he can't fix, so he pushes it to the back of his mind.

Dean brings Sam up a lot. Castiel knows he wants to keep him fixed in his memory, unwavering and _real_, but already they've discovered that neither of them remember the colour of Sam's eyes. Dean didn't speak for a long while after they found that out (at least, Castiel thinks it was a long while, it could have been seconds here for all he knows), so now they talk about old hunts and times when they could laugh without it feeling twisted and wrong somehow.

Eventually, life seems like it was nothing but a dream. It probably was. So when, one morning, Dean wakes up in a bed, with his little brother leaning over him and dripping tears of happiness, he does what he always does when he's asleep and confused. He screams for Castiel. And Castiel comes running from a room next door, and holds him, and looks at Sam, and thanks him silently.

'Green!' is the first word that Dean says, when he looks his brother in the eyes, and then, 'July?' as his focus wanders to a calendar on the wall.

'Gone for eight months,' nods Sam. 'We nearly died trying to bring you back. Three times.'

Tears slide out of Dean's eyes, and he reaches out for his little brother. They hold each other, and Castiel simply watches, because he has done his job. He has kept Dean safe, and relatively sane, and brought him back to Sam. As Dean's eyes meet his over Sam's shoulder, he smiles, and as he watches Dean's lips form the word _forgiven_, he feels a weight the mass of heaven lift off his shoulders.

They are alive. Somehow, that has to be enough.

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Thanks for reading, I hope it wasn't too bad! Please review, I'll love you forever ;)

Iliketotastetherainbow x


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